The Cytokine Study was presented today (though some results were held back due to publishing). The study has been accepted by a journal but not published yet.

I have to say that this is the most well-designed and significant study of ME/CFS patients in the history of this disease. It has a large number of patients (200) matched by control patients. They accounted for variables that would make replication of the results easy to do.

We all know the disastrous mark left on ME/CFS research from the WPI XMRV study. This study more than makes up for that.

Dr. Montoya stated that ME/CFS presents the greatest medical and research challenge of our time and that understanding ME will help aid in the understanding of other diseases.

They studied 51 cytokines per patients in 200 patients comparing them to 400 healthy people. Patients and controls were matched according to age as well as other variables.

The current standard markers of inflammation (ESR, C-Reactive Protein) are increased in disease like RA and Lupus but not in ME. The typical inflammatory markers are normal in ME.

Dr. Montoya made the point that there are no inflammatory markers for ME because not enough of the inflammatory markers are measured.